Grow Your Personal Brand On These 4 Platforms

Never count on anything. Online platforms come and go. The only thing that’s constant in your life is you.

That’s why growing your personal brand and increasing your following is central to online success. Google, Facebook, Twitter et al can move the goalposts at the drop of a hat. In the worst case scenario you’ll be left with a website and an email list.

Why am I writing about platforms when they’re so dodgy? Because I’m suggesting you make use of all four as well as blogging and growing your email list on your site. Yes, the whole nine yards.

So why do everything, be everywhere and create on all these platform when I have proper client work to do? Do it step-by-step and repurpose content on all these platforms. I’ll show you how later, but first, here are the platforms…

Podcast

You can do it. Contact people you admire, interview them on Skype, add an intro and outro and put it out as a podcast through iTunes.

Podcasts allow you to connect personally with people in your industry (your interviewees) as well as connect intimately with your audience as they listen to your voice in their earphones for at least half an hour.

Podcast case study: Bernd Geropp

Leadership coach Bernd Geropp started a podcast in June 2013. After a little more than 3 months, he had 250+ four and five star reviews on iTunes and episodes had been downloaded 100,000 times. This enabled Bernd to successfully market his new book and get new clients – and the new clients were perfect for him because, after listening to his show, they knew he’d be perfect for them.

And what’s even more amazing, the podcast is in German – a market that may be a fraction of the English-speaking market but still large enough for a single leadership coach. And Bernd has less competition than if he’d podcasted in English.

Podcast tools

Why you should podcast

A podcast host is in the audience’s earbuds for 30+ minutes a week thus building a strong connection

The authority of the podcast guests “rubs off” on the host

Actually having a podcast on iTunes adds to authority

Kindle

You can do it. Write 12,000+ words on a subject you’re passionate about. Kindle success depends on a number of factors: keywords, popular problem-solving area, lack of competition, luck, etc. However, someone who reads your Kindle booklet will spend over an hour reading your words. Kindles build your authority and grow your personal brand.

Kindle case study: Steve Scott

Until about two years ago, Steve Scott, had never written a book in his life and didn’t consider himself a particularly good writer. He has now over 30 titles in the Kindle store and ranks 20th, above Robert Kiyosaki and James Altucher, in Amazon’s Most Popular Authors in the Business & Investing category.

Steve has proved that bloggers can make money with their words by expanding onto another platform temporarily. Of course, Amazon could suddenly pull the rug from underneath him, maybe reduce royalties or delete all his books in some extreme scenario. But Steve’s a savvy internet marketer and he incentivises readers to join his email list in his Kindle e-books, thus protecting himself against unforeseen future events.

Why you should write a Kindle

Udemy / YouTube / online teaching

You can do it. If you’re not making video you should. Video tutorials on YouTube are slow-burners. If you make a few of them you’ll get a feel for what keywords and tutorial subjects make for successful online learning. You will also start to make better videos.

After you’ve made a few you can package them together to create a free course on Udemy to grow your following there.

Udemy case study: John Purcell

John Purcell has made $80,000 in the first year and a half of online teaching after almost two decades of “cluelessly failing at one thing after another”. He is now one of the most successful instructors on Udemy teaching Perl and Java computer languages. John regularly receives emails from students who’ve got jobs as a result of taking one of his courses.

John could probably earn six-figures from Udemy this year without lifting a finger, but he’s still working on his site, his email list and YouTube channel as well as continually searching for new exciting ventures.

Udemy tools

Why you should teach online

People see you teaching something they assume you know what you’re doing

Great exposure of your voice, face (sometimes), character and personal brand

Webinar

You can do it. A Webinar is another great way to build your brand and increase your following. If you can get people to block off 45-75 minutes in their busy schedules to listen to you impart your knowledge then you must be doing something right.

With your presentation and Q&A you are giving, giving, giving (jab jab jab) – then at the end you can direct people to an offer (right hook). But, even if they’re not interested in your offer, you have their email addresses, their attention for a while and the webinar video can be made available via YouTube or even as part of a package to sell at a later date.

A good testing ground for this is Google Hangouts. If anyone’s interested in doing a Hangout with me, please contact me via Google+.

Webinar case study: Steve Kloyda

Steve Kloyda wanted to transition his business away from one-on-one phone calls to an audience where he could have greater impact. It was clear that Webinars were the solution he was looking for. He secured hundreds of email addresses and made a handful of sales with his very first webinar, “Magnetic Selling Strategies”.

Webinar tools

Why you should do webinars

One hour’s worth of quality audio and video content leaves the attendees primed to purchase afterwards

Increases your following and builds your personal brand as more people are exposed to your content

Why the above four platforms will work for you

Podcasts, Kindles, online courses and Webinars typically take hours not minutes to consume. They are not like a blog post or a Facebook update which can be read in seconds, discarded and forgotten moments later.

I’m not advocating jumping on these platforms at the expense of your blogging or social media efforts. However, if you create a podcast, a book, a course, a webinar presentation and the payback will be larger. These are big beasts.

Long ago, if an ancestor slayed a big beast in the jungle, what would have happened to their reputation? They would become the authority on hunting within their tribe.

It will be the same with you. These days, I’m always getting emails saying: “Rob, I just read your book and I …”; “I just took one of your courses and I …” or “I listened to your podcast and…” I hardly ever get an email that says: “Rob, I just read a blog post and I thought I’d reach out…” Never, in fact.

These platforms give you authority.

It’s not as difficult as it looks

You can re-purpose content. Blog posts can be repurposed into an e-book. A slide deck can be created from the e-book’s text and this can be included into a video course and a Webinar. The audio from a couple of lectures from the video course can be made into a podcast.

I’m not suggest you churn out the same product on multiple platforms. Sometimes it’s easier to re-write content than to re-purpose – you’re continually honing and adapting for the medium.

You can do it

You can increase your authority and grow your following by creating something awesome on one or more of these four platforms. Do it with me – it’ll be fun!

Comments

What you said is true platforms come and go but we are always constant. We should strive to gain that personal brand which does help us in laying a path to success. What a way to show on how to achieve that personal brand. Podcast’s, Kindle, Udemy and Webinar’s are truly beautiful weapons to gain a good follower base. You have explained them nicely with case studies which does help your readers to follow them and do the same as how they did.

Thanks a ton for the tools you gave under each category that is what one requires to start doing them.

Hi Rob
Great topics as always.
Just got my course onto Udemy, and waiting for final approval. Then I will be promoting it like a bomb!
I am also taking your advice and doing a free lead-in course to help build up the audience.
I am also in the process of starting a google+ HOA with another blogger. Seems to be up and coming!
have a great week
ashley

John Purcell made 80,000 in the first year? Now that is really something! With Udemy I can see there is a lot of technical courses and there is a huge demand for it too. Also about the tutor, if they are responding to their students and have excellent courses, it can done very nicely. I am still brainstorming what I need to do there, any ideas would be welcome. I agree with kindle, it can be done. Podcast is another way to increase your branding which I haven’t really done. Thanks for going into these branding platforms.

Hi Shalu, I think John Purcell made $80,000 in his first 18 months. He also is one of the only people on Udemy who does courses in Perl and Java – which may not be the most exciting things in the world but hugely useful for people looking for work. If you can think of a skill you can teach that people will find useful for work and doesn’t have a lot of competition on Udemy.

I was reading your book last night, Shalu. It’s excellently well written. Thanks for the comment.